Arcadia Battle Creek Special Reserve

Brewed by Arcadia Brewing Company
Style: English Pale Ale
Battle Creek, Michigan USA

Clear yellow with a stupidly overdone amount of carbonation, takes ten minutes to settle in the glass. Fortunately, the flavor profile wasn’t destroyed by infection or anything, but clearly something is wrong here. Light malts, a bit bready and nutty, but largely thin and uninteresting.

Tons of sediment. Yellow with a large head. The sediment is interesting; the yellow color is boring. Very mild hop aroma and hop flavor. Fairly light; I expected it to be listed as a mild.

Bottle: Aroma has some hints of caramel with a big grassy and flowery hops. Pours a transparent amber with a huge soapy large bubbled head with excellent retention. Initial flavor isa very quick creamy malt that is gone almost instantly. Finishes with a big grassy and floral hoppiness. Slightly acidid and metallic. They’ve done much better.

Bottle. gusher. first glass poured straight head, no body. took about 15-20 minutes to finally get a glass containing more body then foam. Head was foamy and rocky. Left an island. Nose is sweet like caramel with some light hops here and there. Taste was kinda thin, leaves a dry, bitter finish. Some light roasted notes, sweet caramel, some light hops and a toasted malt feel.

Hazy, amber/orange hue, ...big carbonation in the bottle, froth erupted furiosly on uncapping, making a careful, patient pour a necessity...head is a booming boulder-y cap, then slims to nothing. Aroma: tart & citric at first, hoppy, soapy, bitter and buttery at the same time. Ringwood? A wild combo, at the least..unique, but not sure I like it... Taste: wham, rebop, boom, bam, and there it is again, same sensations from the nose, now on the palate. bitter, roasty, malty, sour, citric, spicy...not too tasty, and least not right away...huh...the "spice" comes through more, like the coriander in a witbier. Medium-body, with a long, spicy finish...I’ll leave it up to each individual whether this suits them or not, but, while complex and flavorful, it’s just not my cuppa. Perhaps I’ll change my mind somewhere near the end of the 6-pack, once I’ve managed to put the other 5 bottles away, but let’s just wait and see on that.

Bottle. Appeared to be a light gold color when pouring some out. Dusty hop aroma. Holy carbonation, Batman! There is nothing mild about this one. "Mild hop bitterness" my ass. Overly bitter for the style and horribly over carbonated. It’s not a nightmare, but I would not drink this regularly and can’t finish a bottle.

Coppery golden with a huge head. Very light cascade aroma. Some toasty grain and hint of yeast, whiff of oxidation. Light hop bitterness, relatively clean, whiff of cascade in the finish, hint of oxidation.

Another boring arcadian brew. not really impressing me to date. This pale ale seemed to have a little zing to it at least, but very little. Pours out like a lite BMC very light white head. Again quite boring, very light malt, and noticable cascade hopage.